Finnish defenceman Toni Utunen, the Canucks’ 2018 fifth-round draft pick, beat 2017 Canucks third-rounder Michael DiPietro in the Canadian net at 5:17 of overtime to give the Finns a 2-1 victory in a 2019 World Junior Hockey quarterfinal.

Finland had come down the ice after a glorious Canadian chance was foiled when Noah Dobson’s stick shattered on an attempted one-timer.

The Finns tied the elimination game 1-1 with 46.4 seconds remaining in regulation time when Eeli Tolvanen’s centring attempt from the side of the net hit Aleksi Heponiemi’s skate and then rolled up DiPietro’s stick and over the top of his blocker and into the cage.

Canada will now deal with the questions for days. The defending world champions and 17-time gold-medal winners are finished for this tournament. They won’t medal for the first time since 2016, when they dropped a 6-5 decision to the Finns in the quarterfinals in Helsinki.

This marks the first time in 14 world junior tournaments hosted on Canadian soil that Canada will not earn a medal. They won gold in 2006, when it was split between Rogers Arena, Kamloops and Kelowna.

“I’m sad, angry. It’s not good,” DiPietro, who finished with 32 saves, said after the loss. “Sometimes you’re going to get the bounces and sometimes you’re not. For the game to end up like this, it’s disappointing. For our group, it’s a tough pill to swallow.”

DiPietro was Canada’s best player throughout the tournament, despite the pressure of playing in front of the many fans from the NHL club that drafted him. There were multiple “Di-Pi-Etro” chants Wednesday from the announced crowd of 17,047.

“I felt comfortable. I felt pretty good with the way I played, but at the end of the day it wasn’t good enough. At the end of the day, we lost,” he said.

Coach Tim Hunter added: “It’s a tough pill to swallow. You just reflect on what you could have done better as a player or a coach and what you did well and you move on.”

We’ll see in the future what Hunter and his charges learned. Here’s what else we think we learned Wednesday:

Timely goal for Utunen

Utunen, who is playing in the Finnish pro league with Tappara, didn’t have a goal in 26 games heading into the tournament.

“I’m just starting to realize what I just did. I didn’t really think anything right after the goal,” he said. “It was a huge goal for our team.”

The puck seemed to deflect off Cody Glass’s stick. The Canadian forward was back deep in his team’s zone, filling in for Dobson, who had gone to the bench for a stick.

“I did see it,” he said of the room over DiPietro’s shoulder, “but I tried to shoot it a little bit lower. It doesn’t matter now.”

He says he knows DiPietro “a little bit,” from their time at a Canucks prospect camp, but he didn’t speak to him “too much.” He said he hasn’t spoken to anyone from the Canucks organization so far this tournament.

Utunen on the tying goal: “It was luck, which we needed. We had our chances but we couldn’t score. That’s usually how it goes in.”

And Utunen on the crowd: “They gave us also some energy. They were so loud. That helps for us, too.”

Overtime save spoils party

Canada had a glorious chance to win when Tolvanen hooked Evan Bouchard on a breakaway at the 1:14 mark of overtime. Hunter elected to have team captain Maxime Comtois take the shot, and he was foiled by a pad save by Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.

“He’s really good in practice,” Hunter said of picking Comtois.

Comtois, the lone returnee from last year’s gold-medal team in Buffalo, said Canada remained confident they could win it in overtime, even after giving up the late tying goal.

Comtois said he was “confident with his move,” on the penalty shot, but “it didn’t work.”

“It’s not the first one I’ve missed. It won’t be the last one. It hurts. If I get a chance again later in my career I have to be ready to put it in,” said Comtois.

Luukkonen sparkled all game in the Finland net, finishing with 24 saves.

Power play fizzles

Canada went 0-for-3 on the power play and finished the five-game event 3-for-18 (16.7 per cent). Canada officially cancelled practices during the week. It’s easy to wonder now if the power play didn’t need to be polished up.

Hunter did change the formation with his first unit. He kept with the 1-3-1, but moved Owen Tippett from the left-wing wall to the bumper spot, Jack Studnicka from bumper to net front and Barrett Hayton from net front to left-wing wall.

The last four gold-medal winners at the world juniors also led their particular tournament on the power play. Canada won it all last year in Buffalo and their power play was 13-for-29 (44.8 per cent).

Finland’s Samuli Vainionpaa (12) jumps in front of Canada goalie Michael DiPietro as he makes the save during the first period.DARRYL DYCK /
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Juggling the lines

Hunter also juggled his lines a little against the Finns, flipping Nick Suzuki and Brett Leason. Suzuki, who had been playing centre, was moved to right wing with Hayton and Morgan Frost on an all-OHL line. Suzuki plays for the Owen Sound Attack.

Jaret Anderson-Dolan, who had been on the wing with Suzuki, moved into the middle, between Leason and Shane Bowers. Anderson-Dolan and Leason are both WHLers, although they’re in opposite divisions with the Spokane Chiefs and Prince Albert Raiders, respectively.

Bowers is at Boston University. He’s one of two NCAA players on Canada’s team, along with Mitchell, who plays at Denver.

Defence supplies offence

Ian Mitchell opened scoring for Canada, jumping up in the play and rifling a high shot past Luukkonen at 1:30 of the second period.

Mitchell’s goal was the second of the tournament by a Canadian defender, to go along with Dobson’s tally against Denmark.

Canada, on their way to the gold medal last year in Buffalo, got four goals from defencemen in seven games, highlighted by three from Cale Makar.

At the 2017 world juniors split between Toronto and Montreal, Canada received six goals from rearguards, highlighted by four from Thomas Chabot. They lost the gold-medal game 5-4 in a shootout to the Americans.

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.